Under a Blue Moon

Circumstance and sense of responsibility.  Each week my sister and I leave the comfort and routine of our own homes and meet up at my Dad’s.  We both live just a tad too far away for a daily commute to our jobs so it makes practical sense for us to stay at his house for part of the week.  It also means that there are two of us to look after his care and general well-being.  We can be confident he’s eating properly, taking his medication and, probably most importantly, isn’t lonely or bored all by himself. It’s an arrangement that seems to work for all concerned.

Sure, it has its benefits – I’ll be the first to agree.  Sharing of meal planning for half the week being the first that comes to mind.  We’ve come to a comfortable routine of sharing cooking duties, seeing to our father’s welfare and then just relaxing with each other with no expectations except that we like the same television shows so there will be no arguing over what to watch once our father goes to bed.  It also helps that my sister falls asleep within about seven seconds of sitting in front of the television so I have absolute control over the remote.

I had the worst time waking my sister up to go to bed last night. First of all she missed the grossest Boston Legal ever with the whole Scott Little and his mother angle. Just ick is all I’m saying. She’ll have to catch in reruns.

Then it took me a good five minutes to wake her up.  Show was over. I patted gently, I shook her little feet carefully.  I told her she had a rooster on her head.  Nothing worked.   Finally I said “Telephone!   Telephone!  Time to get into your bed.” To which she replied “I don’t like my bed. I only like MY bed.  Holy panko brother.”  "What?" I asked.  She repeated it "Holy panko brother." Now I’ll never get to sleep myself because I can’t stop laughing.  Of course when I started laughing she told me I was being mean and swanned off in a bleary eyed huff.  Whatever works.

I love this gentle caring of others.  This wholly reciprocal taking of turns nurturing.  We may not seem to need it but nonetheless – who is going to argue with someone lovingly persuading us to climb into our safe, warm bed.  This easy turning over of responsibility, knowing that someone will look after you and make sure you are where you need to be.

Holy panko brother indeed.

Me.  1969

As mentioned previously I am currently listening to Haven Kimmel’s She Got Up Off the Couch the sequel to her very popular A Girl Named Zippy memoir.  Haven Kimmel grew up in the 60’s and 70’s which is why I particularly enjoy her writing.  She so perfectly captures the essence of growing up in that time.

It’s making me nostalgic for certain things that I had or coveted during that time.  Before anyone had heard of a Nintendo or iPod’s or MySpace.  Back when a kid was free to roam as long as they were home by the time the streetlights came on (Ms. Kimmel apparently grew up with this same household rule like we did).  No over scheduling with tutors, ballet, and after school sports; one’s day was one’s own once they got through whatever chores had been assigned or school work that needing attending to.

In the late 60’s and early 70’s it was all about the Kiddle doll as far as I was concerned.  I was never a Barbie girl.  Nope, not me.  It was Milly Middle with her toy box, Biff Boddle with his wagon and tiny little dungarees and my favorite; Soapy Siddle with her claw footed bathtub and her striking resemblance to me (well so I thought at the time).   Then came the perfume Kiddles like Apple Blossom and Sweet Pea.  I loved them as much for their little perfume bottle homes as I did their little bendy selves.   My sister swore they didn’t smell so much of roses or lilacs as they did ham.  She still insists this.  Who am I to argue with her olfactory memory?

My best friend growing up, Naomi had an impressive collection.  She was also very particular about her collection.  First of all she had her own room so she had that distinct advantage up on me.  I had to share a room with a marauding younger sister so none of my belongings were all that safe.  But no, Naomi had her own room with its own bookcase solely dedicated to her Kiddle Kollection. Each Kiddle stayed pristine in its original perfume bottle packaging or bejeweled locket.  Not only was I not allowed to touch any of her Kiddles, I had to stand back a good two feet with my hands clasped behind my back in order to even be allowed to look at them.  Naomi went on to form her own real estate consulting firm that specializes in environmentally and socially responsible development.  Basically I think she is still telling people not to breathe their germy breath on or disrupt the pristine beauty of things.

After Kiddles there was a brief infatuation with Wacky Packages – this nearly rivaled the Beanie Baby craze of the 90’s.  They were stickers that made fun of normal household products – like Crust Toothpaste or Band-Ache bandages.  The stickers actually came with a horrid stick of petrified gum that was always immediately tossed.  You never could tell what stickers would come in any package so we would buy up what we could and then there would be a trading frenzy.  We were eventually banned from bringing them to school since we couldn’t be trusted to limit our bartering to recess.  It also resulted in Bergmann’s department store to impose sanctions on unattended ten year olds in their toy department.  Fistfights were known to break out in the aisles when a new shipment of stickers arrived.

My interest and collection came to a swift and permanent end when someone, who never did confess but I do have my suspicions, tossed the manila envelope containing my entire, hard fought collection into the trash.  Confusing it with scrap paper I’m sure. 

Luckily I had my Footsee to give me solace.

I woke up this morning – for the second time – and it was foggy out.  Quite like how my brain feels, this second awakening.  I have a little ritual, if you will, where every Sunday night I go to bed a fairly happy, content person and then I wake up at 2:00am riddled with angst and worry about the upcoming work week.  Some times I just toss and turn for a couple of hours then finally go back to sleep about an hour before I have to really be up.  Or I’ll get up and log into work and face the demon.  Last night I put a pair of headphones on and listened to Haven Kimmel tell me her life’s story  rather than the nagging, uneasy voice in my own head.

I am feeling at crossroads with my career.  I have a job that pays well (and who’s pay I rely on quite a bit), a boss I love, tolerable coworkers and an office situation that can’t be beat (working from home, or where I can get an Internet connection essentially) yet I’m coming to despise my job. 

I am part of my problem.  I have this ability to put things off until the last minute then pull them off spectacularly and to lots of accolades (no one the wiser for the procrastination).  Yet each project I’m on I fear this is the one that I CAN’T pull off, the one that does me in.   I also can’t say know no when I’m asked to help out on smaller projects  and instead of looking frankly at my workload and adamantly shaking my head no I agree and push my own projects off a little bit further.

Then there are the usual office politics and shenanigans – impossible deadlines, unreasonable expectations, not enough funding, miserable soul sucking clients. 

I keep meaning to sit down and sort this out.  Figure out what I really want to be doing and how to pull it off.  But I can’t shut up the clamoring that is going on in my brain, the ever present low level anxiety that is always there, long enough to come up with a plan.  I keep thinking that next month when things are calmer I’ll get to that item on my to do list. 

What I need is a month off.  Just a quiet month where I can reflect and plan and come to peace with whatever I come up with.  Or I could just win the lottery and take the rest of my life off.  That works for me too.

Now I have the immediate concern of soggy socks.  That’s what happens when you go outside first thing in the morning in your stocking feet to take a picture of the foggy street.